That Which We Call
by greenconverses
Summary: What kind of mother names their baby demigod Pandora? Sally Jackson does, apparently. Percy and Annabeth friendship. AU, genderswap.


**Author's Notes:** Wrote this drabble for some kind AU meme on tumblr a few months ago. I thought about expanding it into a longer AU, but I don't really have the energy for it right now. Maybe someday.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_ or _Heroes of Olympus_.

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******The Which We Call**

Everyone at Camp Half-Blood knows Pandora Jackson is trouble the moment she arrives and it's not because she's the forbidden child of one of the Big Three. It's because of her _name_.

What kind of person names their baby demigod _Pandora_ and expects to get a good future from it? That's the question Andrew Chase puzzles while he watches her drool in her sleep the first night she arrives and then later over during his Greek lessons with her or when he notices the other kids giving Pandora a wide berth during their social activities together.

Andrew doesn't want to think ill of the dead, but what on earth was Sally Jackson thinking to give her daughter such a curse of a name?

He supposes Pandora can be nice when she's not being sassy and almost completely irreverent about the gods, but Andrew's wary about being an ally to her. Although he knows she'll need his help if the stolen-master-bolt business with Zeus ever comes to fruition, he doesn't expect they'll ever be friends. Even if she didn't have that bold as brass name, friendship would still be out of the question, considering their warring parents.

It doesn't take long for Pandora to spot that he and Grover are the only ones who treat her somewhat neutrally, and she broaches the subject one day during Greek lessons.

"Why is everyone so obnoxious to me?" she asks, tossing the textbook aside and glaring across the training fields where Clark and the other goons from the Ares cabin are making faces at the two of them. "What did my fa – _Poseidon_ do, drown the camp's favorite kitten or something?"

Andrew pushes his glasses up against his nose, wishing he would've listened to his sister Melissa and gotten contacts once he turned thirteen earlier in the year, and answered shortly, "They don't like your name."

Pandora scrunches her nose up in distaste and Andrew firmly tells himself that he did not find that gesture anywhere near the realm of adorable. Pandora Jackson drools in her sleep for crying out loud. There's nothing adorable about someone who does that.

"My name? What is this, preschool?"

"I told you this before, but names have power here, especially names that have a history behind them," he replies. "Given your general lack of mythological knowledge, I'm sure you don't know the story behind yours."  
She levels a sea-green glare at him. "Even I know _that_ story. Pandora had a box - "

"It was actually a jar."

"Whatever, Owl Face," Pandora says, rolling her eyes, "So Pandora has a _jar_ that she wasn't supposed to open and she did it anyway, unleashing all the evil in the world."

"Exactly. So, you can see why people are a bit… wary around you, with you being named after the girl who cursed the entire world. It's bad luck."

Pandora looks thoughtful for a moment, a rare change of expression for her, and then reaches for her discarded book.

"My mom said there's always a part of the story that everyone always forgets," she says, staring at the book and thumbing its fraying corner edges. "When she realized what she'd done, Pandora tried to stop all the evil from escaping, but by the time she got the lid on, there was only one thing left in the jar. Hope."  
Pandora looks up at him, her green eyes blazing, and Andrew is almost struck breathless by the intensity in them.

"Without Pandora, there wouldn't have evil, but we wouldn't have hope either. And hope is our strongest weapon," she continues, her voice suddenly thick with emotion. "That's why she named me after her, not because I'm bad luck. My mom… she knew I'd need hope some day and that's my reminder that it's always there."

_Ah_, Andrew thinks, averting his gaze to his own workbook, properly chastened. _That's_ what kind of woman Sally Jackson was.


End file.
